An Eye of Tea in Gold
by Lir Without Fear
Summary: Apostle Misaha was the beloved ruler of Begnion until her death in the year 625. But if it was not the heron clan that assassinated her, then who? Extensive backstory for a character that you might not have known the name of. Not for everyone.


disclaimer: i don't own fe9, begnion, apostle misaha or any thing else. this is a product of my imagination.

_An eye of tea in gold_

1

Two things happened in the year of 587. They happened on the same day.

When she awoke on that day she was handled gently from her bed to the baths, where the handmaids scrubbed her spotless and applied the acid paste that removed what little body hair that she had. They washed it from her body in slow strokes with their soft towels and warm scented water. The perfume stained the air watery lilac and made it solid.

After the bath she was wrapped in the silk under robe. It was the color of a shy pink pearl, stopped short at her knees and had no sleeves. At the edge was an orange pattern of leaves. Misaha sat on her knees on a podium in the Dark Green Chamber of Preparation and allowed the handmaids to put up her long purple hair. It came to her knees like the robe. She stared at a crack in the wall as they brought out their combs and the dome headpiece, which is no longer in use by the Apostles of Begnion.

The handmaids brushed her hair out in a fan, split it and then wound it around her headpiece two times in opposite directions. Then they tucked it under itself and pinned it. They pinned it again in back. The rest of her hair was then curled with pins and little wooden bulbs filled with hot wax. The curls fell down like a waterfall. It signified the Goddess's incarnate having been poured onto earth like a blessing of water, rather than a violent torrent and flood. Misaha held very still, hardly wavering from the crack splitting the wall. The crack grew bigger every time she had to sit here. Misaha wondered when the crack would call the attention of a plasterer and a painter.

When her hair was done up, Misaha allowed herself to be guided serenely to the Pale Yellow Chamber of Preparation. She sat on a gilded bench as the slaves presented her with robe after robe. She permitted the Chief Lady-in-Waiting to suggest her garment. This was normal for her. Misaha did not have the same keen style as the Chief Lady-in-Waiting.

The Chief Lady-in-Waiting proposed a long flowing pearlescent white gown revealed by a succession of three robes. The undermost was the color of yellow gold. The pattern was very simplistic and depicted a series of decorative fishes sewn in dark pine colored thread and the fishes' eyes were little flecks of rubies. The second was a reverent deep brown satin with golden fronds sewn in waves, like the sea in grass. The topmost was mossy green silk robe. The pattern was largely geometric, and sewn in white gold thread upon a band of pearl white silk that hemmed the sleeves, which were slightly shorter than the other sleeves to show the progression of color. Today's theme, the Chief Lady-in-Waiting was allowed to explain, was nature.

The robes were set aside temporarily and Misaha allowed the Chief Lady-in-Waiting to direct the application of her cosmetics based on her selections. Misaha was only fourteen, so her cosmetics were exquisitely dusted over her eyelids and her lips, highlighting those sacred features. Misaha did not suffer from blemishes due to the intensity of her baths. She often sneezed as the powder was applied.

It was after the cosmetics that Misaha put on her series of carefully chosen clothes that the Chief Lady-in-Waiting had suggested. One of the handmaids accidentally scraped her with a fingernail and the Chief Lady-in-Waiting ordered a slave to drag her off and beat her ears six times each with an instrument commonly called the tiger slipper. When Misaha was dressed in the robes, the handmaid brought out the red cape with golden tassels. The red cape with golden tassels signified Misaha's rank as the Empress of Begnion.

Her morning routine complete, Misaha was guided to the Hall of Saint Nimue of Belsys where she took her breakfast. The Hall of Saint Nimue of Belsys was actually quite small, only being able to contain two large houses. The red and gold tapestry circling the walls was over three hundred years old and depicted the battle against the Dark God. The table there was over twenty yards long, ranking as one of the smaller grand tables. Misaha was aided by two footmen as she climbed into the high seat of the head of the table. At one end, it was built to suddenly jerk up. The cliff-face of the raised table was carved into a scene from holy texts.

Misaha's breakfast was of three courses, consisting first of a light serving of dry toast, butter, jams and marmalades. The Senate did not eat until she did, although they were required to appear long before she entered through the grand eastern doors. When the Imperial Food Taster had done his work on all the choices, Misaha permitted the meal servants to stand by as she prepared two slices of toast, half strawberry jam and half orange marmalade. She only trusted herself to get the percentages exactly right.

The second course changed frequently. That day it was an omelet, stuffed with peppers, sausage and Cordeutian cheeses. It was also served with milk in silver pitchers, which Misaha bid a meal servant to pour into her golden cup. All of Misaha's utensils were gold. Misaha handled them herself as well, granting the servants the right to observe.

The third course was purely religious. Misaha did not dare grimace as she ate the yetta weed and drank the dreadful dull edged tea brewed from its flowers. She endured magnificently. She had drunk and eaten yetta since she was only one year old. It was the worst thing she had to do.

After breakfast, she led the Senate to the Senatorium. They discussed matters of state and church. The Regent spoke on her behalf as she sat on her golden dais. The Regent was a tall man with long, sallow green hair tied in a long tail, like a rat. Misaha had never seen a rat, so she did not know this for certain. He spoke quickly and elegantly. Many times, Misaha stopped him and granted him permission to elaborate on a point of interest or confusion to her. This continued for many hours before it was time for a brief lunch.

Misaha ate her lunch in the Hall of Saint Proserpine of the Grove. The Senate ate with her. They served a deliciously frail soup of pork dumplings that looked like clear water and tasted so beautifully Misaha did not trust her eyes. Traditionally, her lunches were rather light, only two courses. Misaha had a bird like appetite. She ate and drank the yetta once more.

Afterwards were her lessons. Misaha's tutors were many, but Misaha only had to see one per day if she chose. Today she decided to practice her scriptures with Great Priestess Taena, Countess of Vershupo. Misaha had long since memorized the holy texts, so her lessons were short that day. She wrote up a scroll analyzing the vision of the Goddess to Saint Cassandra. Misaha was never wrong, no matter what she wrote. She could have written that Ashera had ridden a giant dog and carried three bags of yetta leaves on her back, it wouldn't matter. The Apostle was infallible. Misaha dismissed Great Priestess Taena. She had her servants remove her red cape with gold tassels, dismissed them as well and went to play with her dolls alone in the garden oasis surrounding her most personal chambers.

Both things happened in close succession. The consequences lasted until her death.

Misaha was changing the clothes on her favorite doll, Honeysweet. The doll's hair was purple like her hair, and she was meant to represent Misaha's grandmother, the Apostle Lissula, theoretically. Misaha was clumsy with her thick clothes obstructing her hands and nimble fingers, but she was making progress. She went slowly, taking in her body's sensations. Whenever she undressed her dolls, she felt strangely.

She viewed their naked bodies with welled up curiosity. They were all blank. There was no difference between the men and the women except for a lumpy protrusion implying a woman's breasts. The only person Misaha had ever seen naked was herself and she was very much like her dolls yet. If her hand happened to pass over the spaces between their blank legs as she dressed them, Misaha felt a corresponding heat in her own spaces. Misaha had some understanding that the heat was not talked about in polite society.

She kept that feeling a secret. The secret made the heat hotter. Misaha limited herself, too, to make the secret more delicious. The limitations she set made it feel like tongues of fire were teasing her. Some days she trembled and was glad that there was no one to see her.

That day she had allowed herself one secret touch. But instead of heat, Misaha felt a frightening warm wetness between her thighs.

She bid herself to ignore it as it grew colder. She continued with her game, allowing herself no more secret feelings. Although there was no one around, Misaha never spoke aloud the dialogue between her characters. Misaha kept it in her head. Her closed mouth was heavy with their impassioned speeches. Misaha mostly retold herself operas that she had seen, fumbling around the arias of love and ardor.

The wetness did not go away. Now it was time to go to dinner. She would meet with her servants in the antechamber to her personal chambers. They would not seek her. She knew the time by the wilting sun and the clang of the Great Bell Tower. As Misaha stood up, she heard and felt a squelch of thick liquid and the violent expulsion of something from her deep innards upon her thighs. It crept down her skin and disgusted her. She gasped, fearful of the Goddess's wrath. She kept no secrets from Ashera. The Goddess must have chosen now to remind her of her duty, piety and obedience. There was a bright red blotch of sticky, coppery blood upon the back her white chiton where it had stuck to the underside of her. Misaha feared wrongly for her life.

She turned her head at another sharp intake of breath. It was the slave standing watch. He quickly bowed his head again, trying to make up for his mistake of making noise. A good slave should be invisible. Misaha rarely noticed the presences of her slaves, but there was always one on guard duty in her gardens, just in case a villain snuck past the dozens surrounding Misaha's little enclave. He flattened his beast's ears to his skull and acted like he was dirt, as was his lot. Misaha did not recognize him, nor did she expect to. She glanced around to see if there were other slaves. There were none.

"You! You slave. Come here."

Misaha's mouth tasted strange after so much silence. It smacked as it opened and reminded her troublingly of the blood oozing out of her. He looked up, waiting for her to order a beating with the tiger slipper. The one for slaves had iron spikes sewn into it.

"I'll give you the great privilege to speak to me this once without punishment," Misaha said shakily. "You will have the honor of explaining this to me, if you know. Come on, now. Speak."

He stepped forward, and then threw himself to the ground. He was very long of leg. He looked like he could reach up and touch the high placed golden torch places on the garden's walls. He looked tiny as a bug on the soft grass. The slave was slender with his sky blue ears high on his head. His uniform was at the very least clean and orderly, but around his neck he was wearing some kind of trinket that was not the norm. Misaha allowed it. He was a cat subhuman and could not know better.

"Mistress, forgive me!" he prefaced, his strange voice breaking in half in the middle. "Does Mistress suffer any sharp pain?"

"No, I feel no pain."

"Then this slave begs the permission to tell Mistress that, that is normal to a female as is to breathe."

"Normal?"

"Yes. It is Mistress's menstrual blood. Proof of Mistress's womanhood."

"Then I am not hurt?"

"No, Mistress."

"Nor dying."

"No, Mistress."

Misaha swallowed. She had not known the exact transition of girl to woman. She probably had expected it to wait submissively for her to grant it permission to occur. She felt weak.

"I give you the honor of guiding me to my rooms."

"Yes, Mistress."

He very lightly and hesitantly took her raised arm. Misaha took a step forward, but her shock had drained her. She fell over like a pillow stood up on one end. The slave bent quickly and held her up by her waist. The pressure was not entirely unfamiliar. She was routinely touched, even bathed, by other people.

Perhaps, then, it was the difference of the hand, its greater size and strength, the thick barrier of clothing between her skin and his. Misaha found herself to be staring stiffly at his ears, one of which was barely brushing against her nose like snow. Misaha breathed in unsteadily. The heat of his hands she felt on the inside of her skin directly beneath where they made contact. Her breathing was erratic, like puffs of smoke from an unhappy chimney. Misaha could not hear for her heartbeat.

Her slave slowly reached lower, to the backs of her knees and easily held her entirely up off of the ground. She shivered, but not from cold. Misaha remembered that he was being too informal. He should have waited for her to give the order. She would have given this order. How dare he preemptively obey her?

Instead, she said, "If anyone sees you holding me like this, you will be castrated."

Her voice did not have the proper kind of warning in it. Instead of stern she sounded scared. The slave looked alarmed. His arms clenched and then she had one more secret. More of her insides were heated up on their undersides. He tried to put her down again. Misaha was used to limitation but did not want to stop.

"Will you forgive me, Mistress?" he begged. She cleaved to him. She heard his heartbeat, which was as wild as hers.

"No, don't let me go. I forgive you. I won't let them touch you. Please bring me to my rooms."

He hefted her up again and held her tightly so she knew that she wouldn't fall. The slave's gait tossed her up and down gently. Misaha realized that it was the first time that she had requested anything of anyone, rather than permitted them.

Misaha's gardens were cultivated in a wide open circle around the closed dome of her personal chambers. Misaha's gardeners grew many different decorative plants. She had many beds of flowers and flower bushes to enjoy, as well as some carefully cultivated rhubarb that she liked to suck raw. Her domicile was set in the center, surrounded by a small pond, effectively making it an island. The entire thing was set deep in Mainal Cathedral, so Misaha was not bothered by the enthusiasm of the pilgrims, ministers and clergy as they prayed to the Goddess.

The windows revealed a view of every side of the garden. Inside there were four rooms for Misaha's private, undisturbed use, including sleep at night. Misaha more often used the bedroom of state, where the servants were honored with the privilege of entering and waking her up on time. Misaha pointed to a red couch with claws for feet in the first room they entered, her private parlor. The slave put her down easily upon it, and Misaha felt deflated and was touched by cold.

"Go and fetch my handmaids," Misaha said. Her voice wavered. "Here, give me that paper. And the ink and the pen."

The slave did as he was told. Misaha kept paper and pens in easy reach. Her ideas were often fleeting. A carpenter had been commissioned to fashion a beautiful set of paper-pen-and-ink stands to place in all the places she frequented. Misaha's pillow book was full of scraps of paper like those.

She wrote with the paper on her knee. She shivered from the lack of heat.

"This is my insignia and my signature, as well as a note explaining briefly my situation. Give it to the handmaids. Address them as 'O humble ladies' if you don't know how."

Misaha signed it, and then blew on the ink to dry it. She paused to wait for the ink and looked at the slave. He was still badly frightened, probably of her warning. About half of the male slaves were castrated to keep the population controllable. If he had escaped this fate, then something must have been paid for him. She did not understand the process, but understood that it was unpleasant. It was a commonly used punishment. Misaha bit her lip.

"Slave, I'll grant you the right to tell me your branding number."

"Mistress?"

The slave raised his head. He had kowtowed on the ground before her as she wrote and had remained there. Misaha took note of the strangeness of his features. He could not be much older than her, she thought, if subhumans were comparable to beorc in age. Two dark blue lines like cuts slashed upwards from his jaw. Even his subhuman face resembled a cat. His nose and lips protruded just a bit more than a beorc's. His eyes were clearly almond shaped to points at either end and his pupils were fat slits of blackish green. Around his neck he wore a heavy leather collar, with a ring dangling from it for a leash, chain or bell. Beneath that, the trinket she had noted early tapped on the ground. Misaha thought that it must have come loose from under his orange red uniform with all of his vigorous prostrating.

"Your branding number. So that I may reward you for your devotion."

"My branding number is Kadohl 573."

"Number 573. That is the year I was born. You should be honored to have such a number."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Here, it is dry now. Please deliver it quickly, 573."

"Yes, Mistress."

"I give you that honor, 573."

"Yes, Mistress. This slave thanks you."

Apostle Misaha leaned back after the slave was gone. She did not realize she had fallen asleep until a handmaid presented her with a cup of tea and a new dress. It was very simple, but made of silk. The dress was bright red like the blood from her menses. She was also presented with a sleeping robe to put over it. It was bright gold, with images of feathers sewn in a pattern of loops in jewel red thread. Misaha shook and felt numb as she slipped into it. Someone had taken down her hair and the purple curls had straightened out.

The Chief Lady-in-Waiting sat her down on her round bed and held her hand as she explained again what 573 had told her. Misaha's bed was too big for her to get to without a step stool and too wide to touch the ends, even if there were three of her. It had many pillows and a golden sheet spread across the many quilts and downs. Misaha had to put a lining of soft cotton between her legs to catch the grossness. It would happen monthly until she took a consort and was made with child. Misaha trembled and the Chief Lady-in-Waiting held her comfortingly. It was not the same as when 573 had held her, but some heat was restored to her. She was served a light dinner in bed and was told to sleep and rest.

The Senators were peeved, since they had also been served a late dinner. Misaha had not remembered to permit them to have supper until just before she had fallen asleep at midnight.

Misaha also learned by listening that the slave, 573, had told the handmaids that Misaha had walked unaided to the parlor, written a note and then given it to him. The knowledge that 573 had kept the hot feeling a secret too made her feel strangely. Perhaps Misaha would not have been so affected by the day's events had the Chief Lady-in-Waiting known of them. Misaha was so enamored with the sweet feeling that she told no one. The unhappy cold dissipated and she exploded into flames when she remembered it. The heat would remain inside if she didn't reveal that it was there.


End file.
